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Thread ID: 120818 2011-09-27 22:09:00 Cannot mount USB hard disk chiefnz (545) Press F1
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1234107 2011-09-27 22:09:00 Hi guys,

as per title I have a 2TB Western Digital 2.5" USB drive which is not being assigned a drive letter (not being mounted) by Windows.... When Windows asks to intialise the disk I get the following error message...

"Media write protected"

I have tried to use EASUS Data Recovery wizard to see if I can restore the partition/data to another disk but after 14 hours this was unsuccessful as nothing was found... I'm assuming this is because the disk is write protected so DRW could collate the file/partition information correctly.

I'm busy at work and haven't had any time to GOOGLE any of this as yet...

Anyone got ideas as to how to remove the write protect status and then hopefully mount the disk.

Cheers,
chiefnz (545)
1234108 2011-09-27 22:53:00 a few questions
has this drive ever worked ??
have you tried in another PC?
Is it a brand name USB Drive, or a generic case with a drive put inside it ?
1101 (13337)
1234109 2011-09-27 23:00:00 You could try one of these. (www.tomshardware.com) Is there anything on it? One site says a virus may also cause that message Speedy Gonzales (78)
1234110 2011-09-27 23:25:00 a few questions
has this drive ever worked ??
have you tried in another PC?
Is it a brand name USB Drive, or a generic case with a drive put inside it ?

Yes it has worked before.
Yes I have tried it in a desktop andlaptop and the result is the same.
Yes as per post, it is a branded disk...WD Elements Portable SE (I have checked the model and it is a 500GB disk, even though Windows is reportig it has 2TB)


You could try one of these. (www.tomshardware.com) Is there anything on it? One site says a virus may also cause that message
Yes there is data on it which I need to retrieve.
Looked at those solutions but no joy.

Thanks,
chiefnz (545)
1234111 2011-09-27 23:26:00 Is it on the mobo in your sig? Speedy Gonzales (78)
1234112 2011-09-27 23:34:00 No it's currently plugged into an HP 6730b notebook. chiefnz (545)
1234113 2011-09-27 23:40:00 So what was it initialised / formatted on originally?? Is it a SATA (Is it SATA) 2 or 3 hdd? And what version of windows is on the notebook? Speedy Gonzales (78)
1234114 2011-09-27 23:43:00 my suggestion.
Its now a data recovery. Attempt it yourself or seriously consider taking it to a tech or Data Forensics($800+)

Remove it from the USB case & attach to the PC via sata cable
If youre lucky it will then work. Else run data recovery software on it

edit:just re-read your 1st post.
some recovery software works better than others. Havnt tried Easus
Getdataback is very good for data recovery. They may have a demo to see if it will see any data
before you buy it.
But it has to come out of the case, you'll need to break it open.
Also see if there are any known firmware issues with the actual HD.
1101 (13337)
1234115 2011-09-27 23:47:00 I could try and use a few data recovery programs, if you want. Soon find out if any will work Speedy Gonzales (78)
1234116 2011-09-28 00:54:00 It's a WD disk, and is not SATA/SATA2, it has some sort of WD custom internal connection. So connecting the physical disk directly to another computers data interface bypassing the oringal case/cable is not going to work.

I think the primary issue here is that without initialising the disk, data recovery software is unlikely to work. I will try others 1st though before throwing in the towel.

Keep the ideas coming for now.

Thanks,
chiefnz (545)
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